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Sunday, March 29, 2009

NCAA Hockey/Weekend Update

While most of the sports world is concentrating on the NCAA "March Madness" and the annual basketball tournament...the best games of the post season, for the most part, have been in the annual NCAA Hockey Tournament, leading to the Frozen Final Four in Washington DC(a strange place to play a Hockey Tournament it seems to me) the first full week of April.

Of the 16 teams entered in the tourney, Boston University, Notre Dame, Michigan, and Denver, were ranked #1...after one round, only BU was left, via a 8-3 over our very young(23 Freshman and Sophomores) Ohio State Buckeyes....ND, UM, and Denver, were all dispatched by #4 seeds(the lowest seeds in each bracket), in order, by Bemidji State, The Air Force Academy, and Miami of Ohio. Miami won again last night, over Minnesota at Duluth to qualify for the DC event...where they will be joined by Vermont and the winners of tonight's other regional finals. Boston University, it appears, has the inside track to win it all...but the way this thing is shaking out, anything can happen...with OSU and North Dakota(love them only because they have the balls to tell the NCAA to shove it, when the Nazi governing body tried to force them to give up their nickname, "The Sioux"..told them to stick it, and kept the name) now gone, I'll root for Miami and upstart Bemidji State(if they can win tonight, they would join Miami in making their first Final 4, having just made the Tournament for the first time). Vermont made the final 4 by coming from behind to defeat Air Force last night. Two games have seen tying goals scored with less than 1 second left in regulation, while a win by Cornell(also a #3 Seed) came with 18 seconds left, coming from behind over Northeastern.

Tonight's games to decide the final 2 spots feature New Hampshire(another last second tie then OT winner over Duluth) vs Boston College at 5 and then following will be Bemidji State facing off against Cornell. Games are slated for ESPN2 and/or ESPNU.

Meanwhile on the basketball front...my bracket was blown out of the water last night when #3 seeded Villanova defeated Big East Rival and #1 seed Pittsburgh...I had Pitt winning in all my brackets. Now, all I can do is root against UCONN and UNC, and hope neither team makes the championship game.....being a Duke fan I despise both schools(Athletically Speaking). Tonight, Michigan State vs Louisville, and UNC vs Oklahoma will send the final 2 teams to fill the final 4 along with UCONN and Nova'.

Weather wise over the weekend, Friday was a perfect late March day, sunshine, low winds, and a high in the lower 60s...yesterday was cloudy and windy, a raw east wind, with temps in the middle 50s...today we are expecting some snow flurries and about 40 for the afternoon temperatures....heavy thunderstorms rolled through last night.

Despite the weather or maybe because of it, I got a scrimmage in both Friday and Saturday...making it all 7 scrimmages completed, something indeed rare for March. Usually we are lucky to get 1 or 2 in per pre-season. Tomorrow, weather permitting the regular season kicks off...I'm at Delphos St. Johns for a varsity match-up with Wapakoneta. Tuesday Wayne Trace hosts perennial power Defiance, so Garry and I will team up for that one.

1 comment:

NCAA hockey is GOOD stuff. I forget what year it was the Finals were played at The Joe (but it was before SN1 went into the AF, '87 I think)... SN1 and I had tickets and went to two games... including the final. Definitely different than NHL hockey and arguably better.